


My Baby and I

by sabrinak21



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Chapter Two broke me, How Do I Tag, I miss Eddie, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm nervous, I'm new to this lol, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Reddie, Richie Tozier Deserved Better, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 05:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinak21/pseuds/sabrinak21
Summary: "Richie didn’t understand where these memories had disappeared to all those years, memories that now felt re-seared into his brain in a way that he didn’t think would ever let him forget them again. From now on, he was sure that when he’d close his eyes at night, scenes from his - no, fromtheir- youth would play across them. He remembered every detail of Eddie now..."My take on Richie's thoughts at the Kissing Bridge at the end of Chapter Two, previously-forgotten memories, and how he feels leaving Derry (and, sadly, Eddie) behind for good.





	My Baby and I

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is my first ever post on Archive of our Own and also my first ever Reddie fanfic. So idk I might mess up on the technical parts of posting here cause I have no idea how to do it... I just hope I manage the format. But anyway, hope you guys like my story and I'd love some feedback/comments/thoughts!  
The title and the lyric at the beginning of the story come from the song The River by Bruce Springsteen.

My Baby and I - a Reddie fanfic

_Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true… or is it something worse?_

Richie Tozier closed his eyes and breathed in the Derry air around him one last time, felt it on his skin one last time. It felt harsh… unusual. It didn’t feel like home. He wrapped the sweatshirt he was wearing a little tighter around his body - of course, it was already too tight, because it wasn’t his, it was Eddie’s - and let the scent of the smaller man envelop him. The smell of shampoo and laundry detergent and just all-around cleanliness hit him like a gut punch. A few hot tears pricked at his eyes and he took a deep breath, trying to hold them back, reluctantly opening his eyes again when he didn’t succeed. With slightly blurred vision he looked at the wood again. The wood on the railing of the Kissing Bridge, where he had carved his and Eddie’s initials so many years ago. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten, all those years he’d been away from Derry. How could he have forgotten? A small shudder went through Richie’s body as he closed his eyes once more, finally letting the memories he’d been trying to keep at bay take him over.

He remembered the feeling of Eddie’s sweatshirts against his skin. The stupid amount of times he “forgot“ to bring one of his own, just so that Eddie would have to lend him his - which he always did. How ridiculous they always looked on him because they were always too small-

_small and soft and so so CUTE_

-but also how they were always ten times more comfortable than any of his own clothes. How Stan would always roll his eyes seeing Richie in them. How Richie really, _really_ didn’t care.

He remembered nights of the seven of them in sleeping bags in Bill’s living room, he remembered nights of camping out in Stan’s backyard… he remembered pulling Eddie close to him to feel his warmth, he remembered lying awake listening to the rhythmic sound of Eddie’s breathing. In… and out. In and out. He remembered feeling the hot air on his own skin. How it made him tingle. The way Eddie was always so peaceful when Richie was holding him. Eddie, the boy with the most ridiculous, over-the-top case of asthma Richie had ever seen. That same boy, whose breathing was always perfectly calm on those nights where he and Richie laid next to each other in the dark. If both of them were still awake, neither of them spoke. If the other Losers noticed that, once the lights were turned out, the two boys always discreetly moved closer to each other and were always touching in one way or another, no one said anything about it. And when the two would awake in the mornings, tangled into some kind of heap of sheets and limbs with Eddie’s hair in Richie’s face and Richie’s arm around Eddie’s waist, no one ever said a word.

He remembered the unspoken fear and uncertainty all seven of them had felt after defeating _It_ for the first time, the kind of fear that comes with not knowing if you can live with what you’ve been through without letting it consume you. He remembered days on which he couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat and nights he spent alone in sheets soaked in sweat. He remembered shivers he couldn’t shake for hours sometimes. But he also remembered that he was never truly alone. No matter how bad it got, one look into Eddie’s big brown doe eyes, eyes that were filled with so much warmth and reassurance and the same fears Richie felt, somehow always gave him the strength to move forward, even when it seemed impossible. In all the years that had passed since then, those doe eyes had never changed, Richie had noted when he’d seen Eddie again at the reunion. And the effect they had on him had remained unchanged in the same way. Seeing Eddie again had filled him with such an odd, comforting familiarity, to a much higher level than he had felt with any of the other Losers.

He had continued to remember that feeling more and more then. It had started out small and had swelled to an almost uncomfortable size throughout the last couple of days since their reunion, and in this moment it consumed Richie’s entire being. But he wasn’t ungrateful for it. He let himself get lost in it for a few moments, let himself get lost in the remnants of a life long gone, a childhood long forgotten… a part of himself he had erased without ever intending to. Despite the harsh wind on the bridge he let himself get lost in sunny days at the quarry, in memories of Eddie Kaspbrak and his baby face spitting water at him and splashing him and teasing him and incessantly going on and on about skin cancer-

_soft skin and freckles and CUTE_

-from sun burns but always laughing in despite, and Richie remembered how it had always made such a joy bubble up inside of him that he could hardly contain.

He remembered that mischievous glint he’d seen in Bev’s eyes so many times back then when she’d picked up on the bickering or the joking or the touching he and Eddie were always doing in some capacity. He remembered seeing that same glint at the reunion, and he wondered how he could ever have forgotten that look. He remembered the relief that had always come with it, with the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one that saw or felt whatever it was that was between him and the younger boy. But then, he thought, he couldn’t have been the only one, because it wasn’t just something he _saw_, no, it had always been something so much more than that, something so palpable and so constant and so invariable and so _real_ that it had shocked him at times how the rest of the world could go on as normal when this _energy_ seemed to be the only thing that even existed sometimes.

He remembered the burning feeling that he’d never admit he enjoyed, the burning feeling that came with being in love with that fiery little asshole that used to always be by his side, never letting Richie forget about his presence through continuous comments and quips and whining and just generally being needy-

_needy and annoying and so damn CUTE_

-and he remembered thinking he’d do anything for him. No, not just thinking it… doing it. Doing anything for him. Everything for him. Richie had been a constant support system for Eddie, always grabbing onto him and making sure he was protecting him whenever anything that could even be considered danger arose, always backing him up through long, draining arguments with his overbearing mother, always being there to hold his hand when the nightmares became too much to bear… always there to clean up messes Eddie couldn’t handle alone. Always there to pick the spiders out of Eddie’s hair after days spent in the clubhouse on which Eddie refused to wear the shower cap unless Richie did too. And in the same way, Eddie had been a steady support system for Richie too, always there to encourage and reassure Richie when the demons he was housing crawled so far up his throat that they prevented the jokes he usually fell back on from leaving his mouth. Even though Richie had always teased him so relentlessly, the smaller boy had, in actuality, taught Richie so much about life and love and what it meant to be a man.

He remembered the first time his dad had hit him and how he’d run, whimpering and afraid, to Eddie’s bedroom window, who had let him in and held him until the sobs stopped rocking through his body so hard that he feared they might break him, and who had cleaned the wounds with a precision that only Eddie Kaspbrak could.

He remembered the first time he’d tried to make something as simple as pasta for Eddie, some kind of a feeble gesture of gratitude or love, something he’d never learned growing up in the family he grew up in, and how it had come out completely soggy and overcooked and honestly just gross, and he remembered how Eddie had gritted his teeth and finished every last bite on his plate, even ignoring the amount of times Richie had called him “Eddie Spaghetti“ during the meal. He even remembered learning to drive from the younger boy, grasping the steering wheel with shaking hands and sweaty palms that were always slippery when Eddie reached for them to steady them from the passenger seat. He remembered so many other milestones that were so much harder for him than they should have been for a kid that age, so many milestones that a kid _younger_ than him had guided him through. He remembered feeling like such a burden, and he remembered an appreciation and a thankfulness of such magnitude he didn’t think he could ever express it to its full extent, but it was okay, because Eddie always _knew_. He knew and he never felt obligated in any way or resented Richie for anything. He knew every side of Richie, including the broken ones, and he loved him even more because of them.

Richie didn’t understand where these memories had disappeared to all those years, memories that now felt re-seared into his brain in a way that he didn’t think would ever let him forget them again. From now on, he was sure that when he’d close his eyes at night, scenes from his - no, from _their_ \- youth would play across them. He remembered every detail of Eddie now, all the way from his always perfectly-combed dark hair to the bottom of his trainers and his socks that he always had pulled up way too high. He remembered his always too-short shorts and his ridiculous fanny packs. He remembered every freckle that dotted Eddie’s face in patterns that Richie could only think to describe as looking like stars, and he remembered the heat that seared through his body when the younger boy touched him. He remembered the warmth of Eddie’s hand on his on lonely nights when it felt like they were the only two people on the planet, on busy days where they were surrounded by happiness and friends, on days when he was shaking at the steering wheel… He remembered Eddie’s never-ending rants about anything and everything, and he remembered how happy the boy’s voice had always made him. He suddenly remembered everything about Eddie Kaspbrak. But most of all, more than anything else, he remembered an overwhelming sense of love. A passion like he’d never felt before, and certainly hadn’t felt since. A passion he didn’t know he was even capable of feeling because it had been buried with the rest of him when he left Derry all those years ago.

He gulped. He wouldn’t forget again. He wouldn’t let himself forget again.

Richie sighed, and a strange type of fear took over his body, momentarily paralyzing him. It was a new kind of fear, unlike any he’d ever felt before, and it was much worse. Richie Tozier had fought ruthless, unyielding bullying; he had fought a murderous clown and all its weird manifestations - hell, just yesterday he’d fought his old friend Stan’s head-turned-terrifying-spider-creature; he’d faced all sorts of freaky, nightmarish things no one could imagine. But no feeling compared to this one. This fear was much deeper, much more permanent, and it came alongside the unwanted thought that maybe - just maybe - he’d never feel true love again. Swallowing heavily as a set of goosebumps ran down his spine, Richie put the thought aside for now as he pulled out his pocket knife and slowly began to trace over the letters on the bridge in front of him. When he finished, he smiled a small, watery smile in admiration before he slowly got to his feet, removing his glasses briefly to wipe away the few tears that had fallen. He attempted to shut his brain off, because he’d thought more than enough for one day, and right now he just wanted to get the hell out of Derry.

As he got up and brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants, he took one last look at where the letters **R + E** decorated the fading wood of the bridge. The rough Derry wind made him shiver and he noted again how the air felt against his calloused, bruised skin. He wouldn’t forget Derry this time, that he was sure of. But it didn’t feel like home. Not… not anymore. It could never feel the way it used to again.

Richie took slow, uncertain steps back to his car. He sat in it, buckled his seatbelt and started the engine. He grasped the steering wheel with shaking hands and sweaty palms and ached for Eddie’s-

_love_

-phantom, comforting touch in a way that tore him apart inside. He drew in one last shaky breath before driving off, and he only looked back once, fighting the urge to do so more often. If he didn’t stay strong now, he knew he’d never get out of this godforsaken town.

And there was nothing here for him anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!  
Sidenote, I've become obsessed with the idea of a teenage Richie squeezing himself into Eddie's clothes despite them being ridiculously small on him because he loves wearing them anyway and I'm thinking of writing a story that focuses on that maybe. Let me know if anyone would be interested! I also have tons of other Reddie stuff already in the works too! Yay!


End file.
